Strengthening trust in App Store reviews

Shopify App Store
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Reviews on the Shopify App Store are foundational to a fair marketplace. They’re how merchants find the right apps, and how developers earn trust for the products they build. Reviews are one of the most important ways merchants decide which apps to trust. To keep that signal honest, we’re making two changes to how we handle review incentivization and fake reviews. We’re announcing both together, and here’s what partners need to know.

1. A dedicated policy on review incentivization

What it is: Offering, unlocking, or withholding app features in exchange for a merchant leaving a review.

What’s changing: Rules on this practice previously lived within the Partner Program Agreement, which made them easy to overlook. We’re introducing a dedicated App Store requirement on review incentivization with clear consequences.

The consequence: When an app is found to be incentivizing reviews, we’ll remove a significant portion of its reviews. We’ve already identified apps engaged in this practice, and we’ll be enforcing this policy as soon as the change goes live.

2. Stronger fake-review detection

What it is: Reviews that don’t come from genuine users of an app. These are posted to inflate an app’s ranking or to harm a competitor’s.

What’s changing: We’re expanding the set of signals we use to determine whether a review is authentic. Because we’re applying these signals to existing reviews as well as new ones, a meaningful number of reviews that don’t meet our authenticity bar will be unpublished over the coming weeks.

What to expect: Because fake reviewers often leave reviews across many listings to appear more legitimate, some genuine apps may see reviews unpublished too. This isn’t a reflection of wrongdoing on your part but it’s a result of removing the untrustworthy activity connected to those reviews. Our goal is to ensure that the reviews that remain carry more weight. Unpublishing will roll out gradually as the backfill completes.

Why now

As the Shopify App Store grows, so does our responsibility to protect it. Fake and incentivized reviews undermine the trust merchants place in the review systems, and they create an uneven playing field for developers who play by the rules. A trustworthy App Store benefits everyone who builds honestly. These changes make our standards clearer, our enforcement more consistent, and the reviews merchants rely on more genuine.

What you should do

As you collect reviews, make sure you’re doing so honestly and fairly. These are some best practices we recommend:

  • Use the Reviews API to request reviews from merchants who actually use your app.

  • Ask in neutral language at the right moment. A simple “How’s your experience? Leave a review” after the merchant has used your app is fine. Offering anything in return is not.

  • Reply to negative reviews instead of trying to bury them. Merchants value developers who engage with feedback.

What’s next

This is the start of a broader investment in App Store quality. We’re continuing to improve automated detection, strengthen policy enforcement, and strengthen the overall health of a trustworthy ecosystem. App naming and duplication are priority areas we are tackling next, and work is already underway. We’ll share more on that soon.

The Shopify App Store should be a place where the best apps win. That’s what we’re building toward.

Have questions? Drop them below.

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Awesome, thanks so much for starting to listen to the dev community!

I was doing a bit of digging earlier today, and it’s pretty crazy how far this problem goes back. It’s great to see that the honest devs making some noise about it have helped get things moving, and I really appreciate you and the team at Shopify taking steps to sort it.

I’m sure a lot of us are excited to see how this affects the App Store, aside from the dishonest developers, of course, who are hopefully feeling a little nervous.

Really hoping this finally leads to a better and more trustworthy App Store for both Shopify store owners and developers.

I’m sure the honest dev community will be keen to help with anything you need as this rolls out. A few of us know the App Store inside out and track reviews, removals, patterns, and suspicious activity pretty closely, so I’m sure we’ll all be keeping a close eye on how it pans out.

Let’s get this to a place where the best apps really can win.

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Thanks for this, really appreciate Shopify putting something concrete out here.

I can see incentivised reviews are being addressed in the new policy, which is good. Removing a significant portion of the offending app’s reviews is also a real step forward.

The bit I’m still struggling with is whether that’s enough for repeat or deliberate abuse.

If a partner offered something like “leave a 5-star review and get the app free for life”, they weren’t making a small mistake or misunderstanding a vague rule. They were knowingly manipulating the App Store, misleading merchants, and gaining an unfair advantage over partners who played by the rules.

Even if half their reviews are removed later, they may already have benefited from months or years of better ranking, more installs, more revenue, and more merchant trust.

So I guess my question is: at what point does this become a partner trust issue, not just a review cleanup issue?

If a partner has deliberately gamed reviews, especially repeatedly or across multiple apps, why should they remain in the App Store at all? And what confidence should merchants have that the same partner is behaving properly in other areas, like app permissions, billing, support, or merchant data?

Review removal is good, but I do worry that if the worst consequence is “you lose some of the reviews you should never have had”, the incentive to abuse the system is still there.

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Thanks for the update. Weren’t these practices already banned under the previous agreement?

The core issue is the lack of enforcement, not the wording of the rules. Once we start seeing real consequences for bad actors, like app suspensions or permanent bans, then I’ll be a believer.

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What about actually archiving “outdated or less relevant” reviews and not just those for stores that go out of business?

What about shadow banning of shops’ reviews without informing them of why or presenting them with evidence of their “wrongdoing”

What about outstanding support requests for false reviews that support stonewalls on for months‽

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The proof is in the pudding. Let me know when you see any results from this “action”

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For sure. I like to stay positive and celebrate that this is a step in the right direction. We haven’t seen a concrete announcement like this from Shopify about fake reviews for a long time, so it’s definitely encouraging.

That said, I’ll of course be monitoring it closely and will continue adding my voice and sharing any findings.

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When Shopify did the “Great Review Purge of 2025”, we lost about 30 legitimate five-star reviews in the span of an hour, which was a huge blow. It had taken almost 8 years to get to 100.

In exchange for deleting thousands of both legitimate and fake reviews, Shopify promised a fresh start, a balanced, fair, and open App Store. I recall answering some survey, or a forum post, that unless something serious is done to prevent fake reviews from going in again, there was no point in the purge.

Fast forward to now, we see that the fake review problem was, in fact, allowed to grow seemingly unchecked and even more blatantly, as documented by Ollie. If it wasn’t for his insistence, it’s not clear whether Shopify would’ve made new announcements.

I’m concerned this automated process will just be Purge 2.0, and that we might lose even more of the reviews we have left. Could we eventually go back to 0? Since last year’s “event”, I haven’t bothered to ask for reviews anymore.

Here’s hoping the process removes only the actual fake reviews and addresses the root of the issue. We’ll see how this is actually implemented, and with what level of care.

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Were these form stores that went out of business?

You currently may have more reviews than are shown, and I am not talking about archived reviews. Shopify has been shadow banning reviews from legitimate long-operating stores. Reviews they have left across all apps, new reviews, recent reviews, and reviews from years ago. All hidden. The store will see the reviews when logged in but no one else will. Shopify won’t tell the shop owner why nor will they present any evidence of wrongdoing. When pressed for answers all they’ll say is “it’s filtered automatically”.

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This sounds like a good step in the right direction!

As others have already said, the consequence seems limited. Partners can simply continue buying fake reviews or offering incentives like, “Use it free forever if you leave a 5-star review,” and then see which reviews stick and which ones don’t. I think there should be a bigger penalty for partners who are guilty of this, such as a permanent ban from Built for Shopify and delisting for one year. There needs to be a serious consequence; otherwise, they won’t stop.

Additionally, I hope this won’t be like the “great purge” from a few years ago. I’ve worked extremely hard to earn all my reviews, and I know each and every one is legitimate. I’d hate to see legitimate reviews removed again.

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I’m not totally sure. At the time, I believe they used a term like “unhelpful” and “untrustworthy”: old reviews, or from closed stores, or too short ones, or ones that don’t provide “useful” info. Part of the classification was done by an AI, if I’m not mistaken.

“Helpfulness” and “Trustworthiness” can be subjective. I know that many of the archived reviews were definitely more than just “Nice app.” or “Works for me.”

Older reviews, I can agree, probably need less weight, but they can still show proof of consistency and a history of support, etc. There has to be a balance.

Curiously, the one-star review that was old, short, had spelling mistakes, and misleading information was left intact. I believe the system was heavy-handed against positive reviews, because it was trained to target fake ones, which are of course all positive.

I like that Shopify is paying attention to the problem. I’d just ask them to consider being careful with another purge.